Liquid Relief (Amidst the Emotionally "Dry")

House empty

and out it comes:

The trunk of tears,

filled to the brim

like a portable bathtub,

locked with a key

so the pain doesn't

spill out the sides and

      trickle

          down

               the 
                   stairway, 

leaving a salt trail

back to the brimming eyes

and the beating heart

and the empty tissue box

and the hand with the key

which must, at all costs,

lock and hide the trunk

sloshing with drowned hopes and hidden woes

before it drenches the closet

and the bedroom,

bursting like a torrent

through the upper rails,

deluging the household,
swamping the yard,

and betraying the owner of trunk and tears

while alerting all local humanity

that the emotional life

really should not have to be

stored in a trunk.